Hectic holidays have pot dispensaries booming with Black Friday deals

For a lot of people, Thanksgiving is more than just a day to be grateful over a delicious plate of turkey -- it's the unofficial kickoff to the season of holiday headaches.

“It's very stressful. You’re trying to shop, you're trying to cook, you're picking people up, you're doing all these things,” said Tony Galante.

All that stress had Galante looking for the best Black Friday and "Green Friday" deals at his local medical marijuana dispensary, All Greens Dispensary in Sun City.

“I use it for stress and PTSD,” Galante said. “So you know, I'll go in the other room, medicate when there's a lot of people in the house, a lot of noise.”

All Greens is one of a list of dispensaries offering Black Friday blowouts.

“Same thing with any other store -- we get busy. We get a lot more people coming in wanting to take advantage of the specials,” said All Greens CEO Anthony Harrington.

Harrington confirmed a boost in sales during the holidays, with many dispensaries offering seasonal flavors like sweet potato and pumpkin cheesecake edibles.

“I think what it does is it raises stress levels and anxiety for people who suffer from anxiety and stress," he said, "or maybe family is coming in and they need to get some sleep, whatever it may be."

However, not everyone sees Green Friday as a good thing.

“It's an enormous movement to normalize use of the drug,” said Sally Schindel, an advocate from the MATFORCE anti-substance abuse coalition, “with the end goal of it being regulated like alcohol or just lightly regulated to create more use."

Galante disagrees, saying as a patient, it's simply nice to save a little money on his medicine.

“You spend so much money over the holidays,” said Galante. "The first thing you wants is to take care of your medicine, you want to try and get it cheap.”

All Greens is also holding a canned food drive for St. Mary’s Food Bank. Bring in five cans of food and you can receive $5 off your purchase once a day.